There's The Rub
by MistWraith
Summary: Uh, hi, Dad. Sammy seems to have ceased to exist. What should I do? Please read and review. Rated T mostly for language. Oneshot


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**Disclaimer: **Nope, still don't own anything. Not even by adverse possession.

**A/N**: Please let me know what you think!

**THERE'S THE RUB**

Dean awoke, yawning and rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand. Weak sunlight filtered through the flimsy curtains of yet another crappy motel room, an unmemorable rest stop on the way to some place else. He glanced to his right. Sam's bed was empty—not surprising, as Sam was the earlier riser, except when they were on the hunt—but he was a little amazed to see that it had been neatly made up.

He shook his head and grinned at the odd quirks that occasionally popped into his brother's head. _That's why we pay these extravagant rates for palatial digs like this one, Sammy. So the cleaning lady can make the bed! _

Sam was probably at breakfast. Dean hoped Sam would think to bring him something back, as it would get them on the road sooner. He rose and headed for the tiny bathroom, in the mood for a hot shower. He lingered under the spray, working out kinks and small aches. One relatively new scar was still stiff and tended to protest movement, but the hot water seemed to make it happier.

It was over a half-hour before he was finished showering, drying off, shaving, brushing the pearly whites and getting his hair to behave. Stepping out of the bathroom, he expected to see his brother's tall, lanky form and smell something reasonably edible. But the room was still empty and nothing had been left behind to show that anyone except Dean had been there recently.

Frowning slightly, he grabbed his wallet and his jacket and headed out the door. Shrugging into the jacket and turning up the collar, he walked across the motel's parking lot toward the rundown diner on the other side of the road. Maybe Sam had found something interesting in the local paper and was getting some information they might need.

A small set of bells on the inside of the diner's door chimed as he entered. It was less than half-full and a quick glance around at all of the tables revealed the total absence of anything resembling his younger brother. A niggle of worry scampered quickly across his mind, but he pushed it aside. There was no reason to assume trouble before he had to.

He approached the youngish waitress behind the counter and flashed her a ten-thousand watt smile. "Hello, darling. I'm looking for my wayward baby brother. Tall, _way_ too much hair, puppy dog eyes. Answers to 'Sam'."

She smiled back and shook her head, making her ponytail bounce. "Sorry, but no one like that's been in all morning."

Dean kept the smile on his face, though a frown was definitely trying to push its way out. "At any time? You sure?"

"Yep. I've been here since we started serving breakfast and I sure would have noticed someone like that." Her grin became a tad lascivious.

Totally surprising himself, he found her smile was making him uncomfortable. Maybe he was more concerned than he realized. Thanking her somewhat absently, he hurried out the door and headed for the motel registration office. The same man who had been on duty when he and Sam had arrived late last night was still there.

"Hi," Dean said, "have you seen my brother this morning?"

The man looked at him blankly. "Who?"

Dean bit down on his annoyance at the man's denseness. "My brother. Remember? The tall guy who came in with me last night and grabbed an apple from your basket here on the desk?"

The other man's expression changed to more than a little wariness. It suggested that he had become suddenly concerned about Dean's mental stability.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, mister. You came in alone last night, asked for a room for one. And that's what I gave you."

Dean stared at him. "You're crazy!" he finally said. "I came in here with my brother, and you gave us a room with two beds."

"The hell I did." The man looked mulish now and a little annoyed.

They glared at each other for a moment then Dean stormed out of the office and raced back to the motel room. He quickly slipped the key into the lock and opened the door—then stood there, dumbfounded.

When he had left, there had been two beds. Now, one king stood in the center of the back wall. He walked in slowly, wondering briefly if he had entered the wrong room. But, no, there was his duffle bag, still on the small table in the corner. It stood, partially opened, taking up the bulk of the table. All by itself.

But when he had left to go to the diner, Sam's duffle had been there also, fighting his for table space. He pushed open the bathroom door and turned on the light.

All of Sam's toiletries were gone.

Dean fought down a wave of panic. There _had_ to be an explanation. Maybe this was a dream. A fucking-with-a-capital-F bad dream. He turned his head, glancing at the bed, hoping against hope that he would actually see himself sleeping in it. It remained empty.

He toyed with the idea of calling in the local police, but, hell, it was clear that something really big was going on this one-car town—not just snatching Sam, but somehow changing the room, taking Sam's stuff, everything—and the police were probably involved. He would not get any help locally.

And officially dead, suspected serial killer Dean Winchester probably should avoid going to the State Police and making a fuss.

A door slammed nearby and he pulled the curtain aside and looked out. A middle-aged woman was walking from a room two doors down, toward a late-model car parked in front of the room. Dean remembered her. He and Sam had passed her on their way into their room. Sam had picked up a newspaper that the woman had dropped and handed it to her.

Yes! She would remember. A nice respectable passer-through. If he could get her to go with him, it might be worth risking talking to the State Police. He pushed his door open further and walked swiftly up behind her. He made sure to make enough noise that he did not startle her when he came up alongside her.

"Good morning, ma'am," he said, powering up another brilliant smile.

She turned, saw him and smiled back. "Good morning yourself, young man. Thank you again for picking up that newspaper for me; I was afraid I would spill everything else I was holding if I bent for it myself!"

Dean's smile froze in place. "That wasn't me, ma'am. That was my brother. You know, younger, taller, hairier? He was standing next to me."

She looked puzzled. "I'm sorry, but I have no idea whom you're talking about. There wasn't anyone with you at all last night." Her smile came back. "Well, work waits for no one. I have to reach Willoughby by noon. Lovely town." But her smile seemed suddenly less friendly. She turned and entered her car.

He watched her drive away, too stunned to move for a moment. There was no denying the surge of panic now. For a moment, he doubted his own sanity. How could someone just passing through this town be part of whatever was going on? Then he shook his head. No, damn it! He had been traveling with Sam for almost a year now, looking for Dad. And he'd had a brother when he checked into this godforsaken motel!

He grabbed his duffel bag, stuffing his toiletries in willy-nilly. He tossed it into the back of his car. He would search this damn town until he found his brother. And he would damn well deal with whoever set this whole thing up. For one moment, he considered calling his Dad—not he had had much luck this past year in getting any response—but decided against it. What was he going to tell him? "Uh, hello, Dad. Sammy seems to have ceased to exist. What should I do?"

Yeah, right. _That_ would work.

As the Impala turned out of the parking lot, he noticed a town sign that he had not seen in the darkness the night before. "Welcome to Tartarus." What the fuck? _Tartarus?_ Suddenly shivering, he glanced in the rearview mirror—and slammed on the brakes.

The motel and the diner were gone. Behind him was only a lonely road that ran through empty fields. He exited his car and stood there, pivoting slowly on one heel. There was nothing manmade at all. Except the road.

And then it, too, shimmered and disappeared.

As did the grass and trees that had been left after the motel ceased to exist. Now, he stood in a bleak and desolate landscape. Barren rock and steaming sand sweltered beneath a suddenly red-tinged sun that reflected like pale blood on the ground below. Dust devils were kicked up by a wind, which moaned and sobbed among the rocks.

"Like it, Dean-o? Has a certain demonic charm, don't you think?"

Whirling, he found himself staring at a dark figure that vaguely resembled his father. It was seated on a large boulder and its eyes gleamed with a yellow light.

"Where's Sam? What have you done to him?" Dean demanded.

The figure laughed. "Me? Nothing, sport. Your brother is alive and well and living very happily. Without you. As is your father." It slid off the rock and stood up. "They don't need you and they don't want you. They never did. They both left you alone. And that's the way you'll be. For eternity. Alone."

It began to laugh and gestured to encompass the emptiness around them. "Funny to think, isn't it? I couldn't have come up with a better torment for you than you always imagined for yourself." It began to disappear, but the evil grin remained slightly behind it. "At least, you'll never have to worry about overcrowding." The mocking laugh faded into the wind.

Dean stood there, trembling. He desperately wanted it all to be a terrible nightmare, to wake up. For Sam and Dad to be there. For it all to end.

But he knew it never would. He was dead. When he had crossed over, he could not remember. What had happened, he did not know. But this…

This was Hell.

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Sam stood staring blankly out the window. He no longer saw the cars in the parking lot below or even heard the sounds of the sirens of the ambulances that regularly rushed people to the emergency room. The only sounds he tended to hear these days were the beeping of the several monitors in the rooms and the wheezing of the ventilator. He kept his back resolutely to the room, unable any longer to look at his brother, hooked up to a dozen machines, a breathing tube stuck halfway down his throat.

Because that wasn't Dean. Dean was never still or quiet. Dean wasn't ashen except where livid bruises or surgical scars showed. Dean would never have let Sam hold his hand in a death grip or brush his hair back or cry over him or beg him to hold on, to fight, to live. Not without making a host of sarcastic remarks and telling him what a girl he was. Dean didn't lie, limp and unresponsive, day after day. This was some changeling wearing his brother's face.

And he wanted his brother back.

It had been two weeks since the semi had slammed into the Impala. Thanks to the tank-like construction of the Impala and the actual location of the impact point—which had been slightly behind the front seat--he had emerged with nothing more than minor injuries. As had, surprisingly, John Winchester: The bullet wound (which they had danced around explaining) and a moderate concussion were the sum total of his injuries.

But Dean—oh, God, Dean had been a disaster. The EMTs had been stunned by the amount of blood all over him. The damage done by the demon, including massive internal hemorrhaging, had been joined after the impact by intracranial bleeding, evidenced by the blood leaking from Dean's ear.

He had been rushed into surgery. Disbelieving surgeons had later indicated that it almost looked as if something had been trying to cut his heart out. Clearly impossible, but….The head injury had also been extremely severe.

Since then, Dean had lain here, unmoving. The ventilator breathed for him. Machines kept his heart beating. They had waited, day after day, for some sign his body was ready—or even trying—to take back some responsibility for its own functions. But none ever came.

It had reached the point where the doctors had advised Sam and his father that Dean had moved beyond hope. They were certain that he would never awaken. That Sam would never again get to see that self-satisfied twinkle in Dean's eyes when his older brother had succeeded in putting one over on him.

And they had suggested, first gently, then bluntly, that it was time to remove Dean from life support, freeing up equipment that could be used for patients who still had a chance to live. But both he and his father had refused. They weren't ready to give up on Dean, not when there were things the doctors knew nothing about that they could try.

Sam knew that guilt was cracking a sharp whip over his father's head. The demon's savage taunting of his elder son and the past two weeks, when both John and Sam had sat vigil at Dean's bedside, had made John realize how terribly he had screwed up Dean's life, in his effort to both find Mary's killer and to protect his sons. And John was desperate to be able to talk to Dean again, to tell him how much Dean really meant to him. He would not accept any medical advice that denied him the chance to do this.

Sam's fists clenched. He was not free from guilt himself. He had gone off to Stanford, and returned to travel with his brother, sure that he was the victim of his father's obsession, the unfavored and unwanted son. God, how had he been such a blind, self-absorbed _ass_? Not to have seen that it was, in fact, Dean who had been the real victim of his father's drive to find and kill whatever had ripped the Winchester family apart. Dean, who had had to be what John wanted and needed and what Sam had wanted and needed, long before he was old enough. Dean, who had been battered between two testosterone-driven idiots and stretched thin as a wire by their competing demands that he be on _their_ side. Dean, who had put aside every dream and aspiration he had ever had, to cater to the desires of his family.

When Sam was younger, he had seen Dean—the person who really raised him—through wide, admiring eyes. His big brother, the shining hero. By the time he left for Stanford, though, he had had nothing but a not-so-carefully hidden contempt for Dean. How could Dean be such a—thank you, Dr. Ellicott—_pathetic loser_ as to still follow John's orders so blindly? To never stand up for himself? To never break away? To never want to live a "normal" life?

_Maybe because he was too busy standing up for you? And seeking to help your father the only way he could? And trying to hold the family, as dysfunctional as it was, together? So that there was no strength left for himself? How about that, Sammy boy?_

This past year had opened his eyes to many things. To things about himself he was not happy to find out. And to a brother he realized he had never truly known. By the time they had met the demon in battle, he had gone full circle in his feelings toward Dean. Back to the admiration and respect he had felt as a child. As an adult, he knew that Dean was, as were all humans, flawed and cracked in places, but it did not matter. The rest of Dean was unique and special and so much more worthy than Dean thought he was.

In the end, it was Sam who had failed Dean, as he had failed his mother, father and Jess. It was because of him that his mother and Jess had died, that his father had gone on the revenge trail, that the family had been twisted into its current configuration. And that Dean now lay, dead to all, on that damned bed surrounded by those damned machines.

Because of his—and this was the moment for a round of manic laughter to ensue—"gifts". What a fucking joke! His temperamental visions, which conveniently had not warned him about Pastor Jim or Caleb? Or about the fact that Dad had been taken over by the demon? Or even about the murderous attack by the semi's possessed driver?

Or maybe the virtually non-existent telekinesis? _Make it float to you there, psychic boy._ Yeah, even the demon had been amused by Sam's useless effort to do something, _anything_ to stop the relentless destruction of his brother. What the fucking good were these abilities, if they rained nothing but death and destruction on those he loved?

He swiped a hand across his eyes, trying to clear them of the tears that seemed to flow unceasingly these days. He would never have believed he had that much water in him.

The worst part was that he could not apologize to Dean for failing him. Even more, he feared—though he pretended to still believe that he and his father would find a solution, would somehow restore Dean to them—he would never have the chance to tell his older brother—his beloved, desperately _needed_ older brother--that the demon lying or how much Sam needed Dean to keep his promise. _So long as I'm around, nothing bad will happen to you._

_Oh, God, Dean, what will I do if you're not here to keep me from falling into the abyss?_

Sirens blared and lights flashed as another ambulance raced into the parking lot and to the emergency room entrance. The wording on the side of the ambulance read, "St. Luke's Memorial Hospital", but Sam knew better, hearing again the machines and the ventilator behind him. And the silence that was now his brother.

This wasn't a hospital.

This was Hell.


End file.
